Langley. The DUKE OF YORK’S Garden. | |
| |
Enter the QUEEN and two Ladies. | |
| Queen. What sport shall we devise here in this garden, | |
| To drive away the heavy thought of care? | 4 |
| First Lady. Madam, we’ll play at bowls. | |
| Queen. ’Twill make me think the world is full of rubs, | |
| And that my fortune runs against the bias. | |
| First Lady. Madam, we’ll dance. | 8 |
| Queen. My legs can keep no measure in delight | |
| When my poor heart no measure keeps in grief: | |
| Therefore, no dancing, girl; some other sport. | |
| First Lady. Madam, we’ll tell tales. | 12 |
| Queen. Of sorrow or of joy? | |
| First Lady. Of either, madam. | |
| Queen. Of neither, girl: | |
| For if of joy, being altogether wanting, | 16 |
| It doth remember me the more of sorrow; | |
| Or if of grief, being altogether had, | |
| It adds more sorrow to my want of joy: | |
| For what I have I need not to repeat, | 20 |
| And what I want it boots not to complain. | |
| First Lady. Madam, I’ll sing. | |
| Queen. ’Tis well that thou hast cause; | |
| But thou shouldst please me better wouldst thou weep. | 24 |
| First Lady. I could weep, madam, would it do you good. | |
| Queen. And I could sing would weeping do me good, | |
| And never borrow any tear of thee. | |
| But stay, here come the gardeners: | 28 |
| Let’s step into the shadow of these trees. | |
| My wretchedness unto a row of pins, | |
| They’ll talk of state; for every one doth so | |
| Against a change: woe is forerun with woe. [QUEEN and Ladies retire. | 32 |
| |
Enter a Gardener and two Servants. | |
| Gard. Go, bind thou up you dangling apricocks, | |
| Which, like unruly children, make their sire | |
| Stoop with oppression of their prodigal weight: | 36 |
| Give some supportance to the bending twigs. | |
| Go thou, and like an executioner, | |
| Cut off the heads of too fast growing sprays, | |
| That look too lofty in our commonwealth: | 40 |
| All must be even in our government. | |
| You thus employ’d, I will go root away | |
| The noisome weeds, that without profit suck | |
| The soil’s fertility from wholesome flowers. | 44 |
| First Serv. Why should we in the compass of a pale | |
| Keep law and form and due proportion, | |
| Showing, as in a model, our firm estate, | |
| When our sea-walled garden, the whole land, | 48 |
| Is full of weeds, her fairest flowers chok’d up, | |
| Her fruit-trees all unprun’d, her hedges ruin’d, | |
| Her knots disorder’d, and her wholesome herbs | |
| Swarming with caterpillars? | 52 |
| Gard. Hold thy peace: | |
| He that hath suffer’d this disorder’d spring | |
| Hath now himself met with the fall of leaf; | |
| The weeds that his broad-spreading leaves did shelter, | 56 |
| That seem’d in eating him to hold him up, | |
| Are pluck’d up root and all by Bolingbroke; | |
| I mean the Earl of Wiltshire, Bushy, Green. | |
| First Serv. What! are they dead? | 60 |
| Gard. They are; and Bolingbroke | |
| Hath seiz’d the wasteful king. O! what pity is it | |
| That he hath not so trimm’d and dress’d his land | |
| As we this garden. We at time of year | 64 |
| Do wound the bark, the skin of our fruit-trees, | |
| Lest, being over-proud with sap and blood, | |
| With too much riches it confound itself: | |
| Had he done so to great and growing men, | 68 |
| They might have liv’d to bear and he to taste | |
| Their fruits of duty: superfluous branches | |
| We lop away that bearing boughs may live: | |
| Had he done so, himself had borne the crown, | 72 |
| Which waste of idle hours hath quite thrown down. | |
| First Serv. What! think you then the king shall be depos’d? | |
| Gard. Depress’d he is already, and depos’d | |
| ’Tis doubt he will be: letters came last night | 76 |
| To a dear friend of the good Duke of York’s, | |
| That tell black tidings. | |
| Queen. O! I am press’d to death through want of speaking. [Coming forward. | |
| Thou, old Adam’s likeness, set to dress this garden, | 80 |
| How dares thy harsh rude tongue sound this unpleasing news? | |
| What Eve, what serpent, hath suggested thee | |
| To make a second fall of cursed man? | |
| Why dost thou say King Richard is depos’d? | 84 |
| Dar’st thou, thou little better thing than earth, | |
| Divine his downfall? Say, where, when, and how | |
| Cam’st thou by these ill tidings? speak, thou wretch. | |
| Gard. Pardon me, madam: little joy have I | 88 |
| To breathe these news, yet what I say is true. | |
| King Richard, he is in the mighty hold | |
| Of Bolingbroke; their fortunes both are weigh’d: | |
| In your lord’s scale is nothing but himself, | 92 |
| And some few vanities that make him light; | |
| But in the balance of great Bolingbroke, | |
| Besides himself, are all the English peers, | |
| And with that odds he weighs King Richard down. | 96 |
| Post you to London and you’ll find it so; | |
| I speak no more than every one doth know. | |
| Queen. Nimble mischance, that art so light of foot, | |
| Doth not thy embassage belong to me, | 100 |
| And am I last that knows it? O! thou think’st | |
| To serve me last, that I may longest keep | |
| Thy sorrow in my breast. Come, ladies, go, | |
| To meet at London London’s king in woe. | 104 |
| What! was I born to this, that my sad look | |
| Should grace the triumph of great Bolingbroke? | |
| Gardener, for telling me these news of woe, | |
| Pray God the plants thou graft’st may never grow. [Exeunt QUEEN and Ladies. | 108 |
| Gard. Poor queen! so that thy state might be no worse, | |
| I would my skill were subject to thy curse. | |
| Here did she fall a tear; here, in this place, | |
| I’ll set a bank of rue, sour herb of grace; | 112 |
| Rue, even for ruth, here shortly shall be seen, | |
| In the remembrance of a weeping queen. [Exeunt. | |
